Sigmund Freud's Views on Psychology

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A popular association with choices is the angel and devil sitting on your shoulder. The devil whispers do whatever you want, who cares if it’s wrong; while the angel says “You know that you should do the right thing.” Then your mind is left spinning on how to make the choice and you wonder what kind of thought goes into making the choice. What is the psychology of making a decision? Sigmund Freud dedicated his life to studying the mind and its endless features and he was able to test many theories and contribute vast amounts of knowledge to modern day psychology. He devised theories of how the mind is split into different parts and what each part contributes to the whole function. Sigmund Freud was able carefully study the unconscious mind, the psyche and dream analysis though theories of the connections that the mind makes when exposed to life events. During the countless hours that Sigmund Freud spent analyzing the mind, he developed a theory that the mind has two parts: conscious and unconscious. The conscious mind is everything that people are aware of, such as people, places, and objects (McLeod). Where as, the unconscious mind is “a repository of a cauldron of primitive wishes and impulse kept at bay and mediated by the preconscious area” (McLeod). This means that the unconscious part of the human mind is where people have desires to do something. Freud represented the two parts of the brain with the image of an iceberg (see fig. 1). The tip of the iceberg is the conscious part of the brain; the things that humans are physically, mentally, and emotionally aware of and can sense on a daily basis. The lower part of the iceberg that is under the water is the unconscious part of the mind where humans tend to store s... ... middle of paper ... ...k twice and actually dream on just like Sigmund Freud. Works Cited "Instinct." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Magill, Frank Northen. Psychology Basics. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1998. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 23 Mar. 2014. McLeod, Saul A. "Sigmund Freud." Simplepsychology.org. N.p., 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. Rodríguez, Leonardo S. "The Interpretation Of Dreams [1900]." Australian & New Zealand Journal Of Psychiatry 35.3 (2001): 396-401. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Stickgold, Robert. "The Function Of Dreaming." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 93.2 (2013): 11-13. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Thornton, Stephen P. "Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.

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